convict

Pluralconvicts

Formsconvicts, convicting, convicted

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person who has been found guilty of a crime by a court and is serving a sentence.

   The escaped convict was recaptured near the state border.

   Several convicts were transferred to a higher-security facility.

   Similarcon

   Note

   The noun names the person the verb has acted on, so a convict and a convicted felon are the same person seen from two sides. The everyday clipping is con. Older names include government man and assigned servant, and public servant once carried this meaning historically, which can surprise a modern reader.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To find someone guilty of a crime through legal proceedings, or, more loosely, to judge a person guilty in a moral sense.

   Prosecutors hope to convict the defendant on all three counts.

   Her own conscience seemed to convict her long before any verdict came.

   Similarcondemn

   Oppositeacquit, exonerate, clear, absolve

   Note

   The courtroom verb came into English through Middle English and Anglo-Norman from Latin convictus, and it is a doublet of convince. It displaced the native Old English forwyrċan. The charge follows of: a jury convicts someone of a crime. The looser moral use keeps the same pattern, as when Robert Frost writes in 1936 that the king's captors convicted him of once having started a war.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A person sent away to serve out a sentence in a distant penal colony.

   The convict arrived in chains after months at sea.

   Boatloads of convicts were landed at the colony each year.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To convince or persuade someone; to cause a person to believe firmly in something.

   Powerful preaching can convict listeners that they must change their lives.

   Her quiet sincerity finally convicted him that the plan would work.

   Similarconvince

   Note

   Here convict keeps the meaning of its twin convince, which shares a Latin source with the legal verb. It belongs chiefly to religious and ethical writing, where a sermon or a conscience convicts a listener of a truth. Outside those settings, convince is the safer choice, because most readers will hear convict as a verdict.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A popular striped aquarium fish (Amatitlania nigrofasciata), also called the zebra cichlid, named for stripes resembling a prison uniform.

   A breeding pair of convicts will defend their territory fiercely.

   The convict is one of the easiest cichlids for a new hobbyist to keep.

   Note

   The aquarium fish takes its name from the same visual joke as the striped sheepshead: dark bars that look like a prison uniform. In full it is the convict cichlid, and zebra cichlid names the same fish. Plain convict, with the plural convicts, is the keeper's shorthand.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A black-and-gray-striped coastal fish (Archosargus probatocephalus), more widely known as the sheepshead.

   A large convict put up a stubborn fight on the line.

   Local fishermen sell convicts at the dockside market.

   Similarsheepshead

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